Day One

As I was in the midst of rolling out dough today to make garlic knots in preparation for our Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow, N showed up with her camera. This is nothing new in our lives, or in our kitchen; video updates and regular photographic documentation are two of the things I love most about our relationship. When we first started dating, we discovered a mutual desire for community, and both found joy in preparing and sharing food. There is something profound in the simplicity of a bowl of fruit with greek yogurt, honey, and walnuts, or in the first bite of an apple purchased from a farmer whose name you know, or in bread fresh out of the oven, or in blackberry cobbler still piping hot, warming your throat after hitting you with a sweet tartness on the first bite. Our relationship has formed in many ways around the simple complexity of time spent in the kitchen building a meal. The first gift I gave N was a cookbook, and she was the one who gave me my first bread-baking cookbook, which has developed into my own loved process. Food has just always been part of who we are together.
About a year or so into our relationship, we found ourselves frustrated regularly on Sunday mornings, as we both tried to prepare a meal, tripping over each other's feet, often with hot skillets in-hand. For a good year-and-a-half, the solution was simply to not try and cook together when we were both really hungry; the kitchen was just too small not to get frustrated by the inevitable toe-stepping and reaching-around-to-access-the-cabinet. We've since found a way to co-exist in a little kitchen, which seems to me to be a metaphor for so much more. Our relationship has grown around preparing food; amidst the chaos of life and the process of growing, we have become together. As Brian Andreas says, "There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good."
So, this blog is a way to share some of that. It may involve recipes; it will certainly involve photos, and it will hopefully involve laughter as we make this journey together, and invite those reading to come along. We have a tiny kitchen, but it is full of a big love.